The present invention relates to a bacterium-based microrobot, and more particularly, to a cancer tissue targeting bacterium-based microrobot.
A bacterium-based microrobot is a novel concept of a drug delivery system first developed by the present inventers, wherein the bacterium-based microrobot has a structure on which bacteria are adhered to a portion of a surface of microstructure having a size ranging from several μm to several hundreds of μm, and the bacterium-based microrobot can treat diseases by transferring the microstructure to a lesion using a flagellar movement and a disease targeting ability of the bacterium and using a drug and/or a bacterium for treating diseases which are encapsulated in the microstructure (see Korean Patent No. 1003149).
To produce the bacterium-based microrobot having a spherical microstructure, a technique for selectively adhering bacteria to a specific region of the surface of the microstructure is used. Korean Patent Publication No. 2011-0093324 discloses a method of producing a microstructure by using a hydrophobic material for one side of a hemisphere, and a hydrophilic material for the other side of the hemisphere, wherein bacteria are likely to adhere well to the hydrophobic material and bacteria are not likely to adhere to the hydrophilic material. Also, another technique has been known in which bacteria adhere only to a specific hemisphere by surface-treating the specific hemisphere after producing a microstructure using a single material.